It seems that car manufacturers and their authorized dealers and garages want to take customers away from independent aftermarket garages. This made us listen even more carefully to the participants of 7th Conference of Independent Automotive Aftermarket, which is annually organized by Association of Distributors and Manufacturers of Automotive Spare Parts.

The meeting was participated by bosses of companies manufacturing automotive spare parts, distributors and even MPs. The patronage of the Conference was taken by Transport, Construction and Water Management Minister and Minister of Economy, whose representatives gave their positive opinions on activities of automotive aftermarket industry. Sales of spare parts and accessories shall reach the level of above PLN 60bn, exceeding value of manufacturing of new cars by almost PLN 15bn. Also export is growing, reaching a record level of almost PLN 35bn. Polish independent automotive aftermarket recorded sales revenues increase of 12.5% in passenger cars market segment and 10.5% in trucks segment. This shows that the crisis seems to be gone by and the optimism is visible. Despite increase in sales revenues of the companies in 2013, the profit margins fell.

International automotive market was presented by Robert Kierzek, CEO of Inter Cars SA and Piotr Włodarczyk, CEO of EurotaxGlass’s. The value of world independent automotive aftermarket is estimated to be on the level of Euro 750 – 800bn, and the fleet of passenger cars in 35 countries of Europe is composed of 309m vehicles. Consolidation and expansion to new markets can be seen in automotive aftermarket. According to estimates there are almost 100 thousand independent garages which belong to one of 385 garage chains in Europe.

“Gross margin in independent automotive aftermarket will get down to 25-30% Currently in Germany it is on the level of 35% and in Great Britain and Hungary 33% - said Robert Kierzek, CEO of Inter Cars SA. 

Also the matter of image of independent aftermarket was an important issue, especially as OE garages and their ad campaigns are discrediting the image of them. Regarding this matter, spare parts distributors and manufacturers are helping the garages by organization of trainings. There is also a problem of bad association with names of spare parts, especially those ones called “cross references”, which is seen as really negative one by the customers.

Participants of the conference took part in interactive voting. One of them was about so called private brands of large distributors. It turned out that manufacturers see this private brands as the reason of decrease in sales in their premium brands. On the other hand a private brand is a chance for the distributor to gain higher margins.

Great emotions were caused by new law regulations regarding technical control stations, which were lively discussed by presidents of PISKP and STM. Finally, the outcome was that the aim of all participants of the market should be real improvement of safety on the roads, by careful checks of vehicles.

During the conference it was revealed that the European Commission uses the number of 12m people employed in automotive industry, not mentioning that 5m people in this group is employed by transport companies. This is considered to be outrageous fact modification.

Staying in the area of European problems, another issue discussed was the eCall system, which is supposed to be implemented in Europe in 2015. The system makes it possible to make automatic connections, excluding participation of the driver, to emergency numbers and informing emergency about an accident. Besides eCall, there will also be Ball system (informing about malfunction of a vehicle) and sCall, which will be used for servicing the car. Car manufacturers want to force this way the drivers to use authorized garages. Whereas all those systems should be made available to all participants of the market, also for independent goods and service providers, and this is the postulate of their representatives.

Annual conference is not only a possibility of gaining information, but also a place to exchange opinions in “the backstage”. Some of participants complained that brakes were too short.

source: Auto Moto Serwis
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